Distributing Firefox updates as XPIs

Magnus Therning magnus at therning.org
Fri May 13 07:20:35 UTC 2005


On Thu, May 12, 2005 at 08:51:47PM -0400, Stephen R Laniel wrote:
>Is there any reason why Firefox updates couldn't be distributed as
>XPIs? I just tried to download a Firefox extension, and I was told that
>I couldn't do so until I upgraded Firefox to 1.04. I'm running a 100%
>Ubuntu system, so I hesitate to upgrade such things outside of apt-get.
>But even with Debianized Ubuntu, users can still upgrade their
>~/.mozilla/firefox/plugins directory. So I'd like to see changes to the
>product pushed into XPIs if possible. 

Do you mean an XPI of FireFox packaged by Ubuntu that is a "clone" of
the .deb? I.e. all file locations are the same and so on.

They would also have to modify the binary to go look for updates to
FireFox in a different place. Looking for them at mozilla.org won't do.

>Is there any reason why this is infeasible? One nice way to make it
>work is to label the 1.04-upgrade XPI incompatible with Firefox 1.04
>itself; then if your site admin upgraded Firefox to the latest version,
>Firefox would stop using the XPI that you'd installed in your home
>directory.

I don't think it's infeasible. However, the Ubuntu team has decided to
use the Debian package manager. Mixing in XPI does create extra work. I
have a gut feeling that filing a bug on it will result in a very quick
dismissal of said bug. If someone (you?) would show them how it can be
done, just how much extra work is needed, and how much nice the user
experience is then they might be more inclined to include it.

If they still don't accept it you can of course always keep your work in
a repository of your own. Offering the service to the people who are
interested.

/M

-- 
Magnus Therning                    (OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4)
magnus at therning.org
http://magnus.therning.org/

Software is not manufactured, it is something you write and publish.
Keep Europe free from software patents, we do not want censorship
by patent law on written works.

Tragedy purges the mind of trivia.
     -- George Gilder
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